This Triple-Pork Salteña Is a Soup-Dumpling-esque Marvel

In the world of Latin American turnovers, the salteña lives in the shadow of the empanada. The Bolivian-American brothers Patrick, David, and Alex Oropeza, who operate a pop-up called Bolivian Llama Party, are out to change that. They consider the salteña the xiao long bao of South America: Like that famous soup dumpling, it’s filled with a gelatin-based consommé that melts as it cooks, yielding a sweetish pastry with a stewy center. For their new location at the subterranean food court TurnStyle, the Oropezas have added a triple-­pork flavor, named for their mother’s hometown. How do you eat a salteña? “You bite the tip, let the steam out, then work your way down little by little,” says Patrick, the chef of the family. “It’s a combination of chewing and slurping.”